How Celtics’ Jordan Walsh improved his shot before NBA draft

Celtics

“I hope nobody gets offended, but man, we were beating him up.”

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After the Celtics wrapped up their Summer League slate, the dominant storyline revolved around Jordan Walsh, who looked like a potential steal early in the second round.

In the Celtics’ opening loss to the Heat, Walsh went 4-for-6 from 3-point range and finished with 18 points. He continued to impress on the defensive end against the Wizards, but the performance that really opened eyes was a 25-point outpouring against the Lakers that featured a number of impressive plays on both ends. His defense was as advertised. His shot looked better than expected. His passing was a fun wrinkle. Walsh might not be a rotation player next year on a Celtics team with championship aspirations, but the team’s decision to ink him to a four-year deal before Summer League looked prescient after a week of basketball in Las Vegas.

One person who wasn’t surprised was Charles Stoker, Walsh’s long-time trainer who attended the first two games in Las Vegas. Stoker trains athletes in the Dallas region, and he first linked up with Walsh when the Celtics’ rookie was a raw-but-promising middle schooler. Walsh hated the first workout but kept coming back for more until he “fell in love with the grind,” as Stoker put it.

Over the years, Walsh and Stoker spent countless hours in the gym crafting Walsh’s game and turning him into — in the words of Arkansas head coach Eric Musselman — a “violent” defender.

But as Walsh prepared for arguably the most important summer of his life, he knew exactly where to start: His jumper.

Shooting is Walsh’s swing skill, the skill that would keep him on the floor and earn him millions at the NBA level if he made it a consistent part of his game. Unfortunately for Walsh, after his lone season at Arkansas, his jumper was a massive question mark. Walsh shot a disastrous 25 percent for the Razorbacks, which came on the heels of a tough AAU performance the summer before. One scouting YouTube video noted that Walsh played “like a complete non-shooter.”

So when Walsh and Stoker discussed how to get the 19-year-old’s name called on draft night, they agreed that for the first time in his young career, Walsh needed a single-minded focus on shooting from deep.

“We knew what he had to do… to be drafted or to show that he can play at that NBA level, and that was basically catch-and-shoot 3s,” Stoker told Boston.com. “So our workouts were about 80-90 percent geared toward catch and shoot 3s. Catch and shoot, catch and shoot. Multiple reps over and over and over, quality reps over and over and over and over.”

Stoker and Walsh took a ground-up approach, which included minor tweaks to his mechanics. Walsh’s jumper never looked broken in college, but Stoker went through a laundry list of basics. Most notably, Walsh needed to remember to dangle his pointer and middle finger in the rim after shooting — an adjustment that helped fix his shot placement.

“Once he believed in that, once he locked in on that, Jordan was knocking them down without a question,” Stoker said.

But just making shots wasn’t enough. Walsh also needed to show NBA decision-makers that he would be able to shoot accurately within the grind of a game, defending the best players in the world at a high level before getting back and having the concentration and confidence to bury a triple on the other end.

Stoker and Walsh couldn’t perfectly simulate NBA opponents, so they did the next best thing: running drills designed to be extreme even by Stoker’s lofty standards.

“I hope nobody gets offended,” Stoker said. “But man, we were beating him up.”

Stoker means that literally. In one particularly notable drill, he and Walsh’s longtime AAU coach Brandon Espinosa wrapped a resistance band around Walsh’s waist. While Walsh dragged (in Stoker’s words) “a grown man” up the floor, dribbling in different ways the whole time, the other coach put on boxing gloves and threw punches, smacking Walsh in the shoulders and in the legs.

“And that wasn’t the actual workout,” Stoker noted.

The actual workouts were often 40-55 minutes before Walsh could take a water break and were designed to improve Walsh’s shooting while building his stamina and overall fitness. After taking the body blows from his coaches, Walsh was expected to make 30 corner 3-pointers in less than three minutes. In one workout — which Stoker laughed somewhat sheepishly about before describing — Walsh had to run down and back from baseline to baseline five times in 60 seconds. Then he had to do it two more times.

“I never really let him slide that much,” Stoker said. “He hated that. He hated that.”

As for the shooting, Walsh spotted up from five spots; the two corners, above the break on both sides, and the top of the key. Once again, he had to make 30 3-pointers in three minutes. If he didn’t reach his marks, there were consequences.

“Whatever we gave him that day as far as in the skill work, he embraced it. Did he like it? No. But at the end of the day, as long as it showed great results and he knew he was getting better and the confidence was growing at a high level, then he always was ready to go.”

After the Celtics traded out of the first round and targeted Walsh at pick No. 38, Brad Stevens noted the improvements to Walsh’s jumper unprompted.

“He’s a better shooter, and we had him in twice for workouts,” Stevens told reporters. “He’s just getting better and better. I always thought his touch looked good, but he looked hesitant at times. I think over time he’ll become a really good shooter who has the athleticism to finish and drive closeouts.”

NBA size is a rarity. NBA athleticism is a rarity. The determination and focus in a young player to craft NBA talent might be rarest of all. The combination of size, athleticism, and focus is generational, even if the player himself just plays a role at the professional level.

Stoker — who said he got chills when he saw news of Walsh’s four-year deal — is relishing the opportunity to train his first player of that caliber.

“Everybody letting me know that Brad Stevens loved him and said good things about him, for me, that’s my thank you,” Stoker said. “Honestly and truly man, I’m just smiling from ear to ear whenever I hear things like that and really see Jordan perform like he did.

“For the Boston Celtics organization to pour into Jordan and let him know that ‘Hey man, we’ve got you for the next four years,’ that just shows the confidence they have in that kid. Just a testament of his hard work, a testament of what the Boston Celtics see in Jordan and expect out of him, to just give him an opportunity to play at this level. It was a surreal moment, I’ll tell you that.”